Almost every battle becomes oversaturated with archers with each Civil War quest becoming an arrowfest with almost every NPC soldier using a bow and arrow. Stuff like this doesn't make sense because a lot of fresh Legionnaires or Stormcloaks who have never held a weapon or have only handled melee weapons such as swords, axes, maces, and hammers before their recruitment would not be able to use a bow and arrow, they would only use their melee weapons.

I'm not annoyed by archers. I'm just wondering why almost every non-mage combatant uses archery.

The role of archer was a highly skilled and technical position during the advent of archery and during medieval combat with archers being trained from childhood. So I doubt just any bandit would be able to use a bow and arrow.

I'd suggest the opposite. In a rural society like Skyrim, where hunting is obviously an important source of food, children would be "trained from childhood" to use a bow. There's nothing terribly technical about archery; I was an archer when I was a kid. Like any other skill, it requires practice, but it doesn't require anything fancy. Bows and arrows are also considerably simpler (and cheaper) to make than forged swords, so they're common in primitive cultures.

For extra fun, Shout Disarm at the Melee fighters during a Civil War Battle for a Fort. I spent an Hour taking Fort Greenwall, the "Reinforcements" would become pincushions as They spawned. As Glaarg has already stated, Archery would be a Skill that most People would learn very early in life.

Yeah but I still doubt the average footsoldier or bandit would carry both a melee weapon and archery equipment.

If you take a look at the RL Roman Legion, here's a look at standard equipment:

It's also really hard to imagine that they had no Pugio (a leaf-bladed dagger 18 to 28 CM long). I also find it hard to imagine a bowman (Roman or otherwise) who would feel comfortable going into battle without a weapon for close-quarters combat.

Most armies would have been largely spears/pikes. Cheap to make, simple to use, and highly effective. Not very exciting though, so they get left out of games and movies.

They annoyed me to no end, and I took care of them long time ago by making a mod that removes their arrows if hit by a spell.

I would have thought blunt weapons like axes, maces, and hammers were common because they were considered to be "peasant weapons" but that's true, spears and pikes would have been easier to utilize for inexperienced soldiers.

So the real life Legionnaire would have had a bow and sword? I guess that makes the battles make sense then. TES seems to be a weird mashup of pre-Renaissance time periods with Vikings and Legionnaires mixing in.

I guess it annoys me more that it seems that most Stormcloaks/Legionnaires would go straight to their bow despite being in close quarters.

The real life Legionnaire bowman would have had both, the regular infantry of course would not have had the bow, but they carried a form of darts for ranged attacks that were carried attached to their shields... and of course caltrops and other goodies that we don't see ingame.

Actually pikes require training and discipline to use any they're only really effective against cavalry, and they need to be used en masse, They have to be placed at an angle and in ranks and soldiers need to hold their nerve, a single pike on its own is little more than an unwieldy, heavy, pointy stick.

In the medieval period trained soldiers and men-at-arms would have had crossbows, and swords if they were lucky, but low quality. Common foot soldiers, little more than farm labourers, would have had whatever they could lay their hands on typically farm implements, wood axes and whatnot. Archers were usually a separate contingent and highly trained, but low born. In England all common men were required by law to practise archery every sunday from when they were old enough to pick up a bow and English archers were feared throughout Europe.

Archers were key in combat going back to even Greece and Rome. Hunters mastered the bow. I love using the bow for ranged attacks.

I've personally always disliked the fact that barely trained grunts are masters of archery.

For a comparison, I was raised on a ranch... a country boy, eh? So I ogt a BB gun when I was 6, went deer hunting with a 30.06 Remington rifle when I was 10, got a .22 semi-auto Marlin when I was 11, and my dad paid me a nickel a tail for shooting ground squirrels. I got my own rifle, a .32 lever action Winchester when I was 12. When I enlisted in the service, with no military training whatsoever, I could shoot the wings off a gnat at a hundred paces... Okay, maybe not... but a butterfly woulda been in trouble deep...

If you haven't noticed, almost EVERYBODY in Skyrim is some kinda country hick in one way or another, eh?

I also had a bow of my own when I was very young and I also grew up in the country (near the Illinois-Wisconsin border). A theme develops!

As a matter of fact, every member of my family owned their own bows. I had two or three bows, over time, because I kept growing out of them. In our family it was kind of a tradition to drive to the sporting goods store each spring and pick out arrows.

We weren't much for guns though. I had a BB and pellet gun but that was about it. But everybody around us for miles had guns and I often shot those.

I didn't get interested in bows really until I was in my mid-20s. Then I went and bought a compound bow, but I never really did much with it. It was fun for backyard target shooting though. I'd had a recurve bow as a kid, but my first love was my rifles.

Never hold a weapon as we intend them (anything can become a weapon) in my life, and, I don't think that there is a superabundance of archers in the game. Unless you use mods...

It's a little different when the weapon is as much a tool as a hoe or plow... My dad didn't pay me to shoot squirrels so I could have fun, it was because the holes they dug were a hazard to our animals. We went hunting for food, and nothing went to waste. We sometimes needed weapons to fend off bear, cougar, and the occasional bobcat while we were mending fence or rounding up strays. A rifle was just a part of normal workday life.

I never considered my bow a weapon. I competed in target shooting, and we had an "archery golf course" set up on the farm (a series of hay bales with paper-plate targets stuck to them.)

I'll say ditto on the country hick. I never errr "took a walk ( or ride) in the woods" without a 22 or a 17...hog's were a big problem where I grew up, Coyotes also... bear's, panthers and bobcats were scarce, but around. Gators could be a problem, at the swimming hole...lol. I learned the bow ( re-curved) and got pretty good at it.

edit: btw not from Texas...Florida.. but around here coyotes can be a problem also

why didnt the man from rorikstead realize hed just be shot down by arrows when he tried to run? maybe he was just expectign to take an arrow to the knee?

I don't know about in your game, but I've been through that opening scene dozens of times, and that thief always dies from an arrow at the ankle. So, I guess in Skyrim you can survive an arrow in the knee, but you die if it hits lower...

He was going to be executed, so he probably figured that he might as well try to make a run for it even though his chances were slim.

I've always wondered why he ran so slow instead of sprinting and why he did not take any evasive maneuvers, dodge between buildings, etc. rather than just running in a straight line away, making himself an easy target for the archers. Panic I guess. I have also wondered why the PC cannot pick anything up before your hands are unbound. Even with hands bound, you should be able to grab that axe from the fallen stormcloak from the first tower you enter, and swing it at enemies. Perhaps not as effectively as with unbound hands, but even with hands bound, you should not be defenseless.

I think you have to remember that organized, tactically sophisticated armies, such as the Roman Legions, co-ordinated their members into formations which were extremely difficult to break or defeat without either sophisticated weaponry (think catapults) or topographical advantage (rolling rocks or tree trunks downhill). Archers would fire en masse from a distance, while shielded by infantry, not individually against a select target at close range.

I'm sure even small units relied primarily on formations which leveraged shields and spears rather than than the bow and arrow.

Panic could explain why he was running in a straight line, but not why he was running so slow IMO. Of course, the meta reason is probably that it would allow the Imperial archer to hit him and reinforce the feeling of impending doom (look, you cannot escape!). As for our hands being tied up, there really isn't any good reason why our wouldn't be able to use a sharp object to cut his/her binds before we reach the Keep, but the game simply won't allow it.